Vaccination and Adverse Reactions

Doctors discuss and report vaccine complications and/or adverse reactions most often as coincidence. There is seldom a direct link to the vaccine and its damage or death reported. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has provided the public with a simple way to search vaccine data. If you go to NVICs Vaccine Reactions page you will see a horizontal red oblong button that reads Search MedAlerts. Click that button. If you are reading this post and and searching MedAlerts simultaneously I suggest you open another tab on your browser. That way you can go back and forth There are a lot of options on the form. If you want to see what adverse reactions have been reported for all children and adults for a particular type of vaccine lets say the flu vaccine, skip the first two sections and go directly to section 3. Select Vaccine Information. Scroll down in the box until you see the four options that start with FLU or FLUN. If you want to see reactions for all types of flu vaccines, click on the first FLU option and see that it now says ALL VACCINES in the box labeled Currently Selected. Next look to the upper right of the Currently Selected box. You will see a white, rectangular button that says FIND. Click it. As of this morning (January 14, 2012) there are 61,494 events reported to the VAERS database. These are adverse events to flu vaccines that were severe enough for those reporting them to take the time to jump through the hoops on the VAERS database. If you scroll down on the page you will find the beginning of the reports. As of this morning there are 6,150 pages of reports, with each page containing 10 entries. Thats an awful lot of reports to go through. Lets see if we can narrow it down a bit. Click the Back button and return to the Vaccine Products form. Leave this alone; the selection should stay the same. Go to Number 4: Select Event Characteristics. Click the box on the upper left that says Serious. Go to the right side of the blue bar and click the FIND button. As of this morning there are 7,463 serious adverse events reported for flu vaccines. Now multiply that number by 98.5, since the AMA estimates only 1.5% of vaccine reactions are reported. I did the math. The actual number of serious adverse reactions to flu vaccines is probably in the neighborhood of 735,105 (Seven hundred thirty-five thousand, one hundred and five). While you are on this results page, look at the table that breaks down serious adverse reactions by age. Specifically, look at the results for children between the ages of 6 and 9 years. (Note: data is calculated for children six years and older, but less than nine years) There are (as of this morning) 99 serious adverse reactions in this age group. If you have read my post Death By Flu Shot. 7 Year Old Receives Flu Vaccine; Dies 4 Days Later you will recall that there are an average of FIVE deaths each year from flu among 7 year-olds living in the United States. We can estimate that for the age range 6-9 years, there would be 15 deaths from seasonal flu (5 for each year of age). If you do the math and calculate the actual approximate risk of serious vaccine reaction (99 x 98.5) the number of serious vaccine reactions for the 6-9 age group is 9,751. Now, we must remember that the number we are looking at is the number of serious adverse events that have occurred over multiple years, while the risk of death from flu is calculated for only one year. Can we refine this so its more accurate?

Once again, click the Back button and return to the entry form. Go to Number 5: Select Demographics. If the menu is not already open, you may need to go to the right side of the horizontal blue bar and click on the upside-down triangle that says Open. Go to the box that is farthest to the right and click where it says Age (Range). Enter the number 6 in the first box and 9 in the second box. This will break down the data so the serious adverse events to flu vaccine are only reported for children aged 6 to 9 years. Do not click the Find button yet. We still have to tell the form what year we want to know about. Go to Number 6: Select Dates. For Vaccination Date select 2011 and Entire Year in both sections (From and To). This narrows down the data so you are only requesting reported adverse events from flu vaccines administered between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011. Now click the FIND button. As of this morning there have been FIVE serious adverse events reported for flu vaccines in children age 6-9 years for the year 2011. If you scroll down you will see there is one death listed and it was in a seven year-old. A seven year-old BOY. This is not the report for Kaylynne Matten. This is the report of another seven year-old who died from flu vaccine last year. Kaylynnes death is not in the system yet. If her death is ruled to be coincidence and not due to vaccine-injury, it may never be in this system. Now remember, we need to multiply the results by 98.5 to get a true estimate, according to the findings of the American Medical Association. 5 x 98.5 = 492.5 This number, 492.5, is the approximate number of serious adverse reactions to the flu vaccine that were suffered by children age 6-9 years during the year 2011. Given that according to the CDCs own data, there are approximately 15 deaths from flu in the U.S. each year among children in the 6-9 age group, you have to ask yourself, Is the flu vaccine really worth the risk? If parents dont know about VAERS, and if doctors are too busy or believe reactions are extremely rare, and if there are no consequences for doctors who fail to report these mandatory vaccine-injuries, how will we ever get an accurate picture of the number of children and adults who suffer and die from vaccines each year? Is the risk really all that rare? Now that you know how to use the VAERS database, spend some time looking at other vaccines and reading the reports of injuries. Then you will be more prepared to answer that question yourself. Remember, you are the one who is responsible for making health care decisions for your child. You are also the one who will be caring for your child if he or she is seriously injured, and you will be the one grieving if he or she dies as a result of vaccine-injury. As Barbara Loe Fisher said, When it happens to your child, the risks are 100 percent.